Five Types of Christian Comprehension, Erasmus, Hooker, Chillingworth, Wilkins and Watts
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Discerning the Truth in a Divided Realm: Five Types of Christian Comprehension, Erasmus, Hooker, Chillingworth, Wilkins and Watts By Leigh Even Silcox A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliffe College and the Graduate Centre for Theological Studies of the Toronto School of Theology. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology awarded by Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto. © Copyright by Leigh Even Silcox 2019 Discerning the Truth in a Divided Realm: Five Types of Christian Comprehension, Erasmus, Hooker, Chillingworth, Wilkins and Watts Leigh Even Silcox Doctor of Theology Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto 2019 Abstract This dissertation aims to examine a group of key and influential theological writers in early modern England on the topic of truth-discernment within the church, and on the relationship of church and civil society in that discernment. The work of the Dutch Christian humanist, Desiderius Erasmus is essential to this examination, and will form the starting point for the study. Erasmus’ ideas were adapted and used explicitly by English thinkers Richard Hooker, and William Chillingworth, and had implicit although indirect influence on John Wilkins and Isaac Watts through to the mid-18th century. Each in their own way set a direction of thinking about the way to resolve a basic problem of common life: how Christians could discern the truth within divided and pluralized social bodies of Church and state both. In so doing, they had to grapple with a central social reality: if human discernment is limited, what form of corporate governance could provide space – sufficient freedom and sufficient limit or discipline – to draw or press people to seek and apprehend religious truth? The writings of these key authors are not of merely historical interest. Rather, the pressing dynamics of their context and the answers they gave – as well as the tradition of response they were a part of and developed – remain pointedly ii relevant to our own ecclesial situation in 21st century North America, not only among Anglicans but among the myriad of Christian churches trying to reconsider their witness and their relationship to their rapidly complexified civil settings. This is because a central question in early modern and present times is how Christians can discern the truth within fragmented and pluralized social and ecclesiastical bodies. Both periods have seen the proliferation of social, civil, political, and church divisions as the result of the demand for adherence to absolute claims either to particular doctrines, particular moral positions, or to the sole manifestation of a ‘true Church.’ The danger of divided Churches teaching, preaching and acting autonomously – without the capacity to be challenged, corrected, and potentially prevented from acting – has severe consequences for Christian witness as this work will demonstrate. iii Acknowledgments I want to thank my dissertation supervisor, the Reverend Dr. Ephraim Radner whose critical feedback and constant support has been essential to developing and completing this project. I also wish to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Joseph Mangina and the Reverend Dr. Gilles Mongeau for their generosity and encouragement through my years studying at the Toronto School of Theology. I am incredibly grateful for the numerous friends, colleagues, faculty and staff with whom I’ve studied and from whom I’ve drawn support, especially students and residents at Wycliffe College. A particular thanks to Dr. Rachel Lott and The Reverend Dr. Derek Neal for their friendship, their incredible support, and for editing my work! The project could not have been completed without the permission and support of my Bishops, The Rt. Reverends Philip Poole and Jenny Andison, and the support of the parishes in which I’ve served as priest during this process, St. Matthew’s, Riverdale, St. George The Martyr, and St. Matthias, Etobicoke. For their love, support, encouragement, humour, and friendship through some really tough times, I am indebted to my cycling team and shop, Bateman’s, Toronto, and in particular, to my friends, Mike Spagnola, Kris Cox, Andy Filarski, Sunneva Bernhardsdottir, Lyubo Kamenov, Winston Chong, Mike Nurse, and Alex Goel. I also owe my capacity to persevere to my once a week morning breakfast and running club friends again for their love, support, friendship, and for the ability to vent and to laugh with them, in particular, Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher, Kent Bonsma-Fisher, Karen Isaacs, Amy Jiang, Jesse Macht, Lea Wassink, Jen Froese, Andrew Kuhl, and Emily Kuhl. And most especially, I am deeply grateful for my good friends and essentially adopted brothers, Tim Sweeney and Matthew Neugebauer. I am incredibly grateful for my parents, Pam and Paul; for their love, kindness, encouragement and help that enabled me to do a doctorate in the first place, and to finish it. Without the generosity, kindness, teaching, challenging, endurance and care from Drs. Edred Flak and Wanda Malcolm and the Reverend Dr. Annette Brownlee, I would not iv have lived to complete this work. I am deeply grateful for their lives, their commitment to their respective vocations, their work with me, and their generosity in sharing their gifts and wisdom. v Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Contents ............................................................................................................................. vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Desiderius Erasmus ......................................................................................... 24 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 24 The Role of Scriptural Language in the Life of Faith: .................................................. 30 Social Order and Piety .................................................................................................. 35 Learning, Free will and Imitatio ................................................................................... 44 The Challenge of Epistemic Uncertainty: Peace, Order, and Obedience ..................... 51 Erasmus Engages Luther on Certainty of Scriptural Discernment ............................... 56 Epistemic Certainty in Scriptural Interpretation ........................................................... 61 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 2: Richard Hooker ............................................................................................... 72 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 72 Hooker’s Lawes and their importance for the 17th-Century Church in England .......... 76 A Brief Outline of the Various Trajectories of Hooker Scholarship ............................ 78 The Reformation Context for Hooker’s Writings ......................................................... 83 Hooker’s “Web” of Laws: On How God Draws His Creation to Himself ................... 93 Forming the People of the Commonwealth in the Christian Faith ............................. 112 Proper Ends: Knowledge, Reason, Sin, the Commonwealth and the Role of Law .... 124 The Role of Divine Law and Christ Jesus in Forming People in the Faith ................ 128 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 131 Chapter 3: William Chillingworth .................................................................................. 135 Introduction: ................................................................................................................ 135 Background: ................................................................................................................ 138 Certainty: Absolute, Moral and Mitigated .................................................................. 153 The Effects of Finitude on Human Capacity to Reason: ............................................ 160 The Effects of Sin ....................................................................................................... 165 vi On the Role of Scripture, sin and probabilistic reasoning .......................................... 174 On Certainty: Origin and Function ............................................................................. 178 The Role of the Church: .............................................................................................. 186 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 199 Chapter 4: John Wilkins.................................................................................................. 205 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 205 Review ........................................................................................................................ 206 Historical Background ...............................................................................................